Israel Will Get $700 Million in German Arms

Breaking a longstanding official policy against shipping weapons to areas of tension, the German government Wednesday announced a $700-million military support package for Israel that includes Patriot missiles and two submarines.

Chemical weapons detection vehicles and extensive medical supplies are also included in the agreement, according to the government announcement.

The German aid to Israel came on a day Chancellor Helmut Kohl told Parliament that the country cannot afford to duck its responsibilities.

“There are no safe little corners in world policies for us Germans,” he said. “There can be no flight from responsibility.”

Germany’s lukewarm initial backing of the allied coalition fighting in the Persian Gulf and an array of subsequent embarrassing developments, including large peace demonstrations with anti-American overtones, have generated anger among some of the country’s close friends and led some to question the nation’s reliability as an alliance partner.

Kohl and his foreign minister, Hans-Dietrich Genscher, have spent much of the past week attempting to stem the political damage.

So far, Germany has tried to compensate for its lack of military support by providing financial backing.

In addition to announcing aid to Israel, the Kohl government Wednesday said it would provide $535 million to help offset British costs in the war.

That pledge came the day after Germany announced that it would pay an additional $5.5 billion to back the American-led military effort in the Gulf.

The offer to Israel, which followed Genscher’s visit to Jerusalem last week and the arrival of an Israeli diplomatic delegation here Monday, marks the first time Germany will officially supply Israel with defense equipment.

The former West Germany is believed to have secretly shipped an unspecified number of U.S.-made M-48 tanks to Israel in the early 1960s, but those deliveries were never officially acknowledged.

“Israel should know it has our complete solidarity in these difficult days,” Kohl told Parliament before details of the aid package became public. “We will prove this solidarity by supporting Israel . . . with weapons and other military assistance for the protection of its people and its territory.”

The Israelis will receive eight of a total of 36 batteries of U.S.-made Patriot anti-missile missiles currently held by the German army.

The German Patriots are configured as antiaircraft rather than anti-missile weapons. It was not immediately clear if the missiles would be altered before shipment to provide a defense against the Scud, the ballistic missile that Iraq has repeatedly used to attack Israel, or whether they might be deployed as an antiaircraft defense against possible suicide missions by Iraqi pilots.

Israel will also receive 58 German tracked vehicles for detecting chemical and biological weapons. German Defense Ministry spokesman Stefan Lang said 50 of them are from the former East German National People’s Army, while the other eight are West German Fox vehicles.